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The New Horizons Spacecraft and Pluto Flyby

Relive the Pluto flyby through the experiences of the New Horizons spacecraft’s Mission Operations team in this video from NOVA: Chasing Pluto. As New Horizons neared Pluto, its radio signal cut out. With little time to spare—and from 3 billion miles away—the team solved the problem, allowing the spacecraft to gather data and images from a flyby just 8,000 miles above Pluto’s surface. Based on early data transmissions received on Earth, scientists see for the first time the dwarf planet’s 11,000-foot-tall icy mountains and its largest moon, Charon, almost devoid of impact craters.

When NASA launched the New Horizons spacecraft in 2006 to explore the outskirts of our solar system, the primary target of the mission was Pluto, the solar system’s ninth planet. Just months into the journey, Pluto was reclassified as a dwarf planet, a new category created for the vast population of small worlds in the outer solar system. The reclassification did not dampen public or scientific enthusiasm for the mission because so little was known at the time about Pluto and other worlds at the edge of the solar system.

In setting up the mission, NASA hoped to answer many questions, especially concerning the earliest days of the solar system. In fact, it has likened the study of Pluto and other objects in the Kuiper Belt to an “archaeological dig,” in which the objects of study—the remnants of the ancient planet-building process—hold clues just waiting to be discovered. With its onboard equipment, including an ultraviolet spectrometer, an infrared spectrometer, and an imager with a powerful telephoto lens, NASA had equipped New Horizons to identify atmospheric gases and surface molecules and to take close-up images of surface features.

After New Horizons’ nine-year journey through space, it was primed to reveal some of Pluto’s mysteries. In the few weeks following the July 14, 2015, flyby, NASA scientists have not been disappointed. Images show that Pluto’s surface is feature-rich, hardly feature-less. While just a small fraction of Pluto’s surface has been visualized, the scarcity of impact craters suggests that its surface is relatively young.Scientists can infer that geological activity, as occurs on Earth, is responsible for resurfacing on Pluto. Also of note, there are icy peaks that rival the Rocky Mountains in height (11,000 feet). A second mountain range, which appears on a bright-colored and distinctive heart-shaped region, is estimated to be the height of the Appalachian Mountains (5,000 or more feet). This region also appears to contain a flowing ice sheet, similar to a glacier on Earth.

Early returns have also corrected some misunderstandings about Pluto’s appearance. For example, while scientists previously determined that temperatures would be too warm for hazes to form at altitudes higher than 20 miles above Pluto’s surface, two distinct layers of haze are clearly visible—one starting about 30 miles above the surface and the other about 50 miles above it. These layers of haze contribute to Pluto’s reddish hue.

Scientists will study the observations from Pluto for many years after the flyby. Because of the slow rate at which New Horizons sends data, it will take an estimated 16 months to send all the Pluto encounter science data back to Earth.